eBay is an online peer to peer auctioning platform that allows people from all over the world to sell and trade goods. eBay was setup nearly 13 years ago and has seen its net revenues grow into the billions ever since. eBay acts an intermediary between sellers and buyers to provide a safe and secure environment for people to browse, buy or sell products that are new, used or hard to find. The system works just like a real auction where bids are placed on products, with the highest bid winning when the clock stops. eBay puts both parties in touch with each other without ever touching the product and when the deal has gone through, eBay takes between 7% and 18% of the sale price.
Its business strategy is based on three pronged approach which encompasses an online community to buy and sell goods. Included within this is the security which it offers users, this piece of mind granted to users is brought about by another core-competency of eBay, which is cutting edge technology. This technology has granted ebay the opportunity to evolve its internationalization efforts over the past number of years. At the core of eBays business strategy is the sense of community among users whilst using the service. Users from all over the world (more then 150 countries) have to be able to converse and describe their products in their native language; otherwise the feeling of a global community will become nothing more then a regionalised and segregated market place.
The process of adopting computer software to different languages and cultures has been a main goal of eBay and in 2004 its progress in this field became evident when it deployed software that could translate foreign language web-pages into English in less then 30 seconds. Since then eBay has been gradually upgrading its software with new features such as a vendor management tool, better search engines and more